Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pattern_based_sequencer]

I'm wondering what your technique is for teaching one-on-one?

My students always say they want me to teach them "conversation." They can hold a conversation easily enough, and they ask me to correct them on pronunciation and sometimes word usage, which I do.

So, I do that. But I wonder if it is enough? Usually for a one-hour session I print off a set of questions, with some theme (for example money, marriage, family, etc.) and we chat about that for the hour, deviating sometimes from the questions.

I encourage them to pretend it's a real conversation, not a list of questions.

What do you do in this scenario? Just curious.

[Fishead soup]

Avoid over-correcting this will make him/her nervous. There are a few textbooks that are good for one on one teaching I suggest
Small Group Topics by Jack Matire or Lets Talk by Duane Voresse.
Both are available online.
The altimate goal should be more free talking and the text should be used as a guide and not a map. You should aim to divert attention from the orginal text so the discussion becomes more meaningful.
If he'she really clams up I suggest some soju and Samgyupsal.

[edwardcatflap]

Find out more about what they mean by conversation. Do they just want to improve fluency and pronunciation by recycling the vocabulary they already have in a faster, clearer way or do they want to learn anything new? Assuming they want to learn new vocabulary and use it, feed in some new words and phrases each class then get them to practise them in controlled and then freer activities. Or you could use a short text on a subject, get them to read and comment on it, then create questions with words they don't know from the text and practise those. You could do the same with a short listening. Make sure you use any new words or phrases again in the next lesson to make sure it goes in.

[dudi]

What I used to do for (really) advanced students is assign 2-3 articles from The Economist. Checking the vocab was part of their homework. In class I would point out useful sentence structures, have the student practice using them, correct any mistakes. After that we would just talk about the articles. So: summary, related news he/she might have come across recently, and, finally, having them tell me what they think of the issue. The last part was more of a discussion; sometimes I would contradict them (even if I agreed with what they were saying) and have them defend their point.

As we went along I would jot down some notes regarding their pronunciation and awkward sentence structures. It's really difficult to say anything meaningful if someone keeps interrupting you every minute or so. I was trying to make them talk as much as possible without interrupting them so that they could develop their ideas.

Worked pretty well, but keep in mind that they were adult students who kept up with current events and had a good understanding of economics.

I really miss those classes...

[le-paul]

koreans often have a different concept of 'conversation' to us and small talk and asking questions is sometimes a little different.
i mention this because I read an academic paper on how a conversation develops in korean culture a little while back. It was very helpful becasue I then began to encourage my students to follow more conventional western methods of politley asking questions to the other person etc. Something Koreans dont always do naturally in thier society because they sometimes see it as unnecessary.
So encourage them to ask a lot of questions to develop a conversation out of each topic/question or what ever.

I also developed a conversation card with everyday, English, small talk questions such as "what did you do last night?" "what are you doing later?" and drill my students with this at the start of every lesson.

[Illysook]

A Korean whom I am close to says that Koreans tend to know the "fancy" words, but not the simpler ones, and I've noticed that many of the Koreans that I meet are fairly proficient, but lacking in confidence. I'm thinking that a copy of the 300 most commonly used words could boost my dear friend's confidence quite a bit.

[InOtherWords]

Yes, I agree about Koreans knowing fancy words out of the blue. My friend who can speak just some English drops words like "narcissistic" and "enterprise" in simple conversations.

[some waygug-in]

One method I've heard of is to record your student as they speak to you.

You can ask them questions and have them answer or have them talk about themself.

Then go through the recording and show them where their weaknesses lie.

I'm not sure this is the best method as it tends to focus on errors, but it is a direct way of showing the student what's going on.


I have not used this myself, I was told about it by one of my students.